THE CONFESSIONAL "When thou hast met with careless hearts and cold, I passionately pray of thee!" LADY E. S. WORTLEY. I THOUGHT of thee-I thought of thee, We stole along by isles of balm, We furl'd before the coming gale, We slept amid the breathless calm, We flew beneath the straining sailBut thou wert lost for years to me, And, day and night, I thought of thee ! I thought of thee-I thought of thee, Are many as the leaves in June- Is pregnant with impassion'd thought, And song and dance and music are With one warm meaning only fraught— My half-snar'd heart broke lightly free, And, with a blush, I thought of thee! I thought of thee-I thought of thee, In wonders of the deathless arts; I stray'd to lone Fiesolé On many an eve, and thought of thee. I thought of thee-I thought of thee, Night left the Cæsar's palace free To Time's forgetful foot and mine; Or, on the Coliseum's wall, When moonlight touch'd the ivied stone, Reclining, with a thought of all That o'er this scene has come and goneThe shades of Rome would start and flee Unconsciously-I thought of thee. I thought of thee-I thought of thee, 'In Vallombrosa's holy shade, Where nobles born the friars be, By life's rude changes humbler made. Here Milton fram'd his Paradise; I slept within his very cell; And, as I clos'd my weary eyes, I thought the cowl would fit me wellThe cloisters breath'd, it seem'd to me, Of heart's-case-but I thought of thee. I thought of thee—I thought of thee, Like dust of silver slept the moon. And, as the black barks glided by, The water to my leaning ear Bore back the lover's passing sighIt was no place alone to be I thought of thee-I thought of thee. I thought of thee--I thought of thee, Old Homer's songs around me playing ; Or, watching the bewitched caique, That o'er the star-lit waters flew, I listen'd to the helmsman Greek, Who sung the song that Sappho knew- The poet's spell, the bark, the sea, All vanished-as I thought of thee. I thought of thee-I thought of thee, In Greece-when rose the Parthenon And heroes with it, one by one; I thought of thee-I thought of thee, Where, swiftly as the waters flee, Each wave some sweet old story tells; And, seated by the marble tank Which sleeps by Ilium's ruins old, (The fount where peerless Helen drank, And Venus lav'd her locks of gold,*) In the Scamander,-before contending for the prize of beauty on Mount Ida. Its head waters fill a beautiful tank near the walls of Troy. |